


Seven Ways to Say 'I Love You'

by Minnow_53



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluffy Ending, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25218127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minnow_53/pseuds/Minnow_53
Summary: Sirius tries unsuccessfully to tell Remus he loves him.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58





	Seven Ways to Say 'I Love You'

**Author's Note:**

> First published on LiveJournal on 20/8/05. Thanks to Asterie for the beta.

**1\. Verbally**

Just coming out with the words is the simple and obvious way to tell someone you're besotted with him; but there’s nothing simple or obvious about Sirius Black. Well, he can be said to be a bit simple in Care of Magical Creatures, which he originally took in the mistaken belief that it would vindicate werewolves, who get rather a bad press in Defence.

Instead, it’s all about Flobberworms, Kneazles, which he dislikes on principle, and Crups, which aren’t a patch on Padfoot, no matter how much Professor Kettleburn rhapsodises about them. He’s only doing the NEWT because Remus is, and Remus didn’t want to be the only Marauder in the class.

In fact, it’s in Care of Magical Creatures that he’s looking at Remus out of the corner of his eye and imagining a romantic confrontation. Romance isn’t entirely new to him: he’s the one who’ll suggest a walk by the lake, while Remus will say dubiously, ‘Oh, but it looks like rain. Let’s just go to the Shack.’ All the same, he’s never made an actual declaration yet, even though it seems a bit weird to shag someone halfway to next week and not let on that you quite like him, really.

Remus is shivering a bit, huddled into his scarf, his hands in the pockets of his cloak. He’s always cold; Sirius secretly puts warming charms on all his outdoor clothes, but they never seem to work except in full summer. He’s listening intently as Kettleburn drones on about Hippogriffs and how they carried a load of children to safety during some flood about a million years ago. Might as well be in History of Magic.

His mouth is slightly open. Sirius thinks fondly that anyone who didn’t know Remus well would say he looked a bit dopey. Actually, he _does_ look a bit dopey. It’s hard to tell with Remus whether he’s concentrating or daydreaming. He’s confided in Sirius that he often switches off and thinks about whether he should learn to swim at last, or about what he had to eat last summer. In fact, Remus can recite the components of every single meal he’s had in the past six years, since arriving at Hogwarts. He’s very obsessed with food for someone so thin. 

Sirius has sometimes thought that Remus might be impressed if he proclaimed his love in another language; preferably a language Remus wouldn’t understand. He wonders how you’d say it in Old Elvish. Remus has a dictionary of ancient tongues, but it would give away the whole show to ask, ‘Moony, how would I tell an elf I loved it?’ Or Remus might assume there really was an elf, and get hurt and huffy and refuse to sleep with him.

Of course, he’s practised the words in English many times. The phrase, so simple yet impossible, forms itself elegantly in his head, even on the tip of his tongue: ‘I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you,’ in every possible permutation and emphasis. ‘I _lurve_ you. I _luhve_ you. I luv you. I looooooooooooooooooove _you_.’ Sirius has shut himself in the bathroom for hours on end and told his reflection how deeply he feels for it, how he adores it and could eat it up for dinner. He’s said it in a nervous falsetto, in low, husky tones; he’s virtually growled it, and he’s said it very fast so the words run into each other – ‘Iloveyou’ – and so slowly that it took almost a minute to get it out.

He just hasn’t quite managed to say it to Remus’s face. Not yet.

Remus has put up his hand and is asking how the children, up to their necks in water, managed to persuade the Hippogriffs to trust them in time to avoid drowning. 

‘I love you,’ Sirius thinks, drinking Remus in with his eyes. ‘I love you.’ For a moment, he feels it so deeply that he can almost imagine he said it aloud.

**2\. With Actions**

Of course, in this sort of relationship actions say a lot before you’ve even started. With two guys, you can’t fake anything: well, nothing physical.

But there are also the little gestures like collecting Remus’s possessions, which are scattered all over the dorm. When Remus grumbles, as he often does, that he can’t find his hairbrush and comb or his pyjama top, Sirius is always able to produce the lost items with a flourish. He feels these actions should, if Remus is paying attention, shout ‘I love you’ to the skies.

After Care of Magical Creatures he waits for Remus to finish asking the professor another question about Hippogriffs, something to do with whether they eat rats. He amuses himself by imagining Peter being gobbled up by a Hippogriff, which makes him smile, though it isn’t really funny. 

When Remus is ready to come up to the castle, armed with the extra homework he volunteered for – and Sirius is just relieved he didn’t get saddled with it too – Sirius encourages him to talk about the lesson. He even makes a real attempt to listen.

‘They must be really intelligent, though, Sirius! Kettleburn said that they didn’t let the children go through the ritual.’

‘Wow, that was good of them,’ Sirius says, trying to inject as much sincerity as possible into his voice.

It obviously works, because Remus nods vigorously. ‘Yes, wasn’t it? They knew the children wouldn’t understand about bowing and all that.’

He gazes at Sirius, his eyes bright, a lock of hair falling over his eyes: he can never succeed in keeping his fringe manageable, even when Sirius has handed over the previously lost comb. Sirius thinks he looks utterly adorable, and would happily show him, with a few simple actions, just _how_ adorable. But dragging someone into the Forbidden Forest to snog him isn’t a great idea on a Wednesday afternoon, when they have essays to write. 

Up in the common room, he empties Remus’s bag and arranges everything he needs for his homework on the table. He fills Remus’s ink bottle and sharpens his quills, even puts straightening charms on the overly curly parchment, so Remus won’t swear and say, ‘I wish they’d invent parchment you could bloody write on.’ 

Sometimes, he suspects that Remus might be making the same mute attempt to tell _him_ something, because while he’s getting the homework things ready, Remus is up in the dorm, arranging Sirius’s after-school clothes on his bed. Remus folds them neatly and sets them out in the order Sirius will put them on: jeans, teeshirt, trainers: magic ones, because trainers haven’t actually been invented yet. 

James often remarks on their strange communication through possessions. ‘Oi, Padfoot, why don’t you just let Moony put out his homework things and you can put out your clothes?’

Sirius isn’t quite sure whether James knows, or is even capable of guessing, what all this activity means, but he notices that when James carries Lily’s heavy schoolbag up to Gryffindor Tower for her, Lily gives him a big smile. Remus tends to sit and scowl over his work, but no doubt he’s equally grateful.

 **3\. With Presents**

Lily’s best friend, Zoe Smith, never misses an issue of _Witch Weekly_. The other girls sneer at her because she doesn’t read _16_ or _Charm_ , but Sirius notices that when she leaves it in the common room after she’s finished, someone instantly pounces on it. In fact, he doesn’t often get to see it himself until lights out, when he pretends he needs to sneak downstairs to fetch a forgotten book. 

He can’t sleep tonight anyway: all this musing about how to say ‘I love you’ has left him restless and anxious. What better way to lull himself to sleep than with a stupid magazine?

He always turns to the problem page first. There are several reasons for this, not least of which is that he can always give Prongs good advice when he has a query about Lily. Then, of course, he sometimes finds it helpful in his relationship with Remus.

The agony aunt in _Witch Weekly_ is a truly fearsome hag called Zelda with a blatant split personality. She has no time for vacillating or unfaithful wizards, and her advice to betrayed witches tends to be along the lines of ‘Hex him and string him up by the balls’. But she has endless patience with correspondents asking what Sirius used to consider silly questions. Now, he knows better, of course.

Interestingly, the letters to her often coincide with an article in the magazine. For instance, tonight Sirius’s heart leaps when he sees that the star letter is from a young witch wondering how to tell her wizard that she loves him.

Zelda’s reply is positively gushing. _‘My dear young lady, there are many ways of telling your young man how you feel! A gift can be worth a thousand words of love! On p. 20, you will find a feature on 101 ways to make your lover feel special, with suggestions for those special anniversaries and birthdays. But you must be sure you’re not being pushy, dear! Has he ever given you any indication that he reciprocates your affection?’_

Sirius thinks for a moment. Reciprocates? Remus putting out his clothes must mean something, just for a start, but he can’t remember Remus ever getting him a present unless it’s Christmas or his birthday. But damn it, he loves Remus and he wants to tell him and so he turns to the handsome, double-page spread of presents jostling over each other and squealing, _‘Buy me, buy me!’_

This year’s discriminating witch with a few Galleons to spare can clothe her man in _‘the finest Muggle tank-top!’_

Sirius examines it. It’s like a jumper without arms, and the example shown has checks and a V-neck. He wonders what sort of wizard would infer adoration from a gift like that. Not Remus, that’s for sure. Of course, the magazine _is_ for older people.

Remus would probably not like a pipe-holder that dispenses advice on how to give up smoking – who the hell _does_ read this rag, anyway? – or a mug that’s personalised depending on who’s using it. Well, that’s not much good. How personal is a Remus mug that becomes James’s or Peter’s when someone else picks it up?

He reflects that it will soon be their seventeen-week and two-day anniversary. He wonders if Remus would like boxer shorts with _Big Boy_ on them: tempting, but he’s vowed to stay right away from anything even bordering on the suggestive. Besides, he can just hear his mother sniffing, ‘How tacky!’ 

He gives up on gifts and finds the short story, which is about a broken engagement and reconciliation. Perhaps he should get Remus a diamond ring, he muses. Or maybe Remus could get him one. 

Anyway, a ring is more like a symbol. He’s done symbolic gifts. On Valentine’s Day, a couple of weeks ago, he sent anonymously a red, heart-shaped card that actually beat like a real heart, with a satisfying thump, thump. Inside, he wrote _‘My true love hath my heart and I have his_ ,’ the opening line of a poem Remus once showed him. He thought that would immediately make it obvious that the valentine was from him, and state his love for one and for all.

Remus opened the envelope, went as scarlet as the heart, and hastily shoved the card away.

‘Who’s that from?’ James asked, and Remus shrugged.

‘Some girl.’

Sirius examined his face closely to see if he were bluffing: he was not. ‘What girl?’ he asked, and Remus went even redder.

‘I’m not saying.’

‘Does she like you, then?’ Sirius asked, hoping that at least he was succeeding in getting the message across, even if Remus thought it came from someone else.

‘I s’pose so.’

Since then, Sirius has taken every opportunity to ask Remus about this mystery girl. He shoved the card into his trunk – Sirius takes it out every so often to have a look – and was upset enough to burst into an impassioned speech when Sirius crept into his bed that evening.

‘The card. It doesn’t mean anything, honestly. You know that, don’t you?’

Sirius hid his smile by nuzzling Remus’s neck. ‘Course I do. Who is it?’

‘Promise you won’t tell?’

‘Swear.’

‘Zoe. Zoe Smith.’

Sirius was quite indignant. ‘Smith doesn’t have the imagination to send a card shaped like a proper heart!’ He was about to say ‘Let alone know Muggle poetry’, but remembered in time that Remus hadn’t read out the contents and therefore he'd give himself away if he mentioned it. 

‘Zoe’s okay,’ Remus said, with studied casualness.

Sirius was incensed. ‘Remus, she’s seventeen years old and she reads _Witch Weekly_! The girl’s got a problem.’ 

Remus sulked. ‘So liking me is a problem, is it?’

Sirius didn’t, unfortunately, take the opportunity to say, ‘ _Not_ liking you would be the problem, Moony’, because he was so annoyed about Remus’s mistake.

If he’s going to give Remus a gift again, symbolic or otherwise, it won’t be an anonymous one this time, he decides, when he’s read the magazine from cover to cover and is on his way up to bed. 

**4\. Take an interest in his hobbies**

After a night spent dreaming about multiple Remuses in tank tops, Sirius reflects that he doesn’t really need to fret too much about gifts, because this afternoon he’ll be able to give a practical demonstration of his feelings.

In the Muggle world, Remus would be the sort of person who collects stamps, and Sirius would go along gamely to the weekly after-school Philately Club with him. In fact, Sirius would probably have managed to scrape together a small collection of five-knut stamps in a handsome, tooled album, just to give him enough credentials to join the club and keep Remus company.

Sadly, wizards don’t use stamps. They did, briefly, in the Middle Ages, when letters were distributed by an ancient crone on a broomstick, but then the first owls were trained and the stamps became history: in fact, they’re so rare and valuable that only families as venerable as the Blacks could even dream of possessing one.

Hogwarts doesn’t have clubs as such. But besides being a prefect, Remus is a librarian, which means that once a week he sits at the desk in the fiction library and checks out books. Sirius is not a librarian – far from it: he’s been banned from the library several times, most recently when he was doing the Animagus work. Padfoot appeared unexpectedly and chewed up a valuable manuscript about alchemy. Sirius managed to explain it away quite convincingly.

‘I’m so, so sorry!’ he said, batting his eyelashes, which are very black and very long, ‘I made a really stupid mistake! I though it was Transfigured into a sandwich, but the spell went wrong. And it was dinnertime…’ He still got banned, but he didn’t get detention, and the rest of the work was carried out in the grounds, until they perfected their control of the animals.

On Remus’s library days, like today, Sirius shows his solidarity by perching on the edge of the librarian’s desk, dangling his long legs and chatting to the students waiting to take books out: Remus is methodical, but not very fast.

‘Oh, you've got that book about the girl who always messes up summoning spells,’ he remarks to Lily Evans, who’s patiently waiting in the queue and not pulling rank as Head Girl. ‘It’s good. She goes to a Healer - ’

‘Don’t give the story away, Sirius,’ Remus interjects.

Sirius is annoyed. ‘Oh, all right, then. If you’re so worried I’ll spoil Evans's reading, perhaps I’d better go and hang out somewhere else.’

Remus stops dead, with his wand poised over the last date on _The Winter Herbologists_ , and turns his full attention to Sirius, completely ignoring the line forming in front of his desk. ‘Why would you do that?’ Remus’s eyes are bright, possibly a bit guarded. ‘I thought you liked sitting in the library with me.’

Sirius reflects, not for the first time, that Remus is too sensitive for his own good sometimes. ‘I do. But obviously you don’t want me here, if you’re going to carp at me because I just mentioned _one thing_ in a book. I’m not exactly giving the whole plot away, am I?’

The other pupils are absolutely silent now: Madam Pince would be delighted to hear the lack of noise, if you don’t count the two boys bickering.

Lily Evans clears her throat rather pointedly, and Remus drags his eyes away from Sirius with, apparently, some difficulty.

‘Sorry, Evans, I’ll only be a moment here,’ he says.

‘I don’t know why it’s such a problem suddenly. You said I was helpful,’ Sirius says.

‘You are.’

Actually, Sirius has only been helpful once, when he warned a First Year that her novel about dark wizards would frighten her. He obligingly found her a nice book about pixies and fairies to replace it, and everyone was happy.

Lily Evans says, ‘Black, Lupin, can you discuss this another time?’

He and Remus exchange a smile and a shrug, and Remus gets back to checking out books. The queue is now extending into the reference library. Sirius wonders why the students don’t try to avoid the library on Thursdays, because Remus is so bloody slow.

Just look at him now! Is he trying to hurry things up? Not a bit of it; he’s got into an argument with a Third Year Gryffindor trying to take out a very raunchy novel about a nymphowitch, with _Seventh Year Only_ stamped in it. When Remus finally wrests the book away, Sirius Accio’s it discreetly into the pocket of his robes. They can look at it together later, which will create another shared interest.

Unfortunately, Remus sees him, and Accio’s it back, putting it in the pile of returned books building up at his elbow. He glowers at Sirius so fiercely that Sirius doesn’t dare try to get hold of it again, even though he _is_ a Seventh Year, after all, and has every right to read dirty books.

**5\. Physically**

When they’re on their way down from the library, an hour later, he’s very tempted to say to Remus, ‘If you didn’t dawdle so much, you could do your library stint in half the time.’ He doesn’t, though. Anyway, the queuing pupils, being British, even if with magical powers, wait patiently on the whole. Even so, today, one Slytherin got a bit cross and threatened to turn Remus into a toad if he didn’t hurry up, because he was missing Quidditch practice, and a Ravenclaw girl Transfigured her book into a jar of fire to keep her hands warm.

As there’s nobody in sight, Sirius puts his arm round Remus briefly, staring quite intently at him to make sure the message of affection and solidarity is getting across. 

This is one of Sirius’s favourite ways of trying to express his feelings without actually saying the dreaded words. He likes to take hold of Remus’s hand as well: if anyone looks at them, he swings Remus’s arm, as if it’s just a game. They can’t really touch more in public, and Prongs always notices if he has any contact, accidental or otherwise, with any part of Remus’s anatomy: his leg or arm, that is. He sometimes wonders if Prongs suspects and is jealous; okay, he has Lily now, but he and Sirius are still best friends, and maybe he’d resent Sirius getting together with Remus. 

A few days ago, when Remus was, admittedly, sprawled with his legs flung across Sirius on the common room sofa, James said pointedly, ‘Padfoot, we have that Charms work to finish. You owe me two diagrams of wand movements and a before and after of the tidy hair charm.’

‘You going to be the ‘before’, James?’ Sirius tried to sound teasing though he was, and still is, irritated at James for acting like a cross between Professor McGonagall and a total prat.

‘Can I be the ‘after’? Peter asked eagerly, and Sirius sighed and posed them, and spent two hours painstakingly drawing wands and hair on a smooth piece of parchment. 

Just touching is one thing, but of course sex is another. In his attempts to communicate his feelings to Remus, Sirius has occasionally stumbled across the concept that sex is meant to be an expression of love.

Maybe it is, but actually he is usually more concerned with the sensation of sex, and he imagines Remus is too. They don’t talk about it much at all. Oh, they issue instructions, like ‘Turn over,’ or ‘Don’t stop’, but those hardly show deep feeling. They might kiss or go to sleep with their arms round each other, though kissing and just holding someone are rather distinct from sex. Possibly, their meaning is less equivocal too, or Sirius hopes it is.

At the beginning, they had the occasional conversation about who’d do what to whom and how, which they kept purely clinical. He has a fond memory of discussing lubricant with Remus in the same cool tones they’d used to discuss their Divination homework earlier; actually, the homework discussion was far more impassioned, because Remus was freaked out by a big Grim he’d seen in his teacup. 

‘I don’t know how anyone ever figured this out,’ Remus said on that occasion, looking closely at the dog-eared pages of _Boy Meets Boy: Sex For Beginners_ , which Sirius had nicked from Foyles the summer before. They were in the Shack, sitting on the floor with their backs against the very tatty bed, their legs unabashedly touching, and occasionally their hands and mouths too.

‘Well, the options are limited,’ Sirius said. ‘And the main problem is the lack of natural lubrication.’

Remus sniggered. ‘Doesn’t seem very romantic, does it?’

‘Romance isn’t the point, is it?’ Sirius replied. He still regrets that now: it was a wonderful and missed opportunity.

‘But lubrication is,’ Remus said. ‘I don’t fancy being ruptured and getting peritonitis.’

Sirius was exasperated. ‘For Merlin’s sake, what a hypochondriac you are! I’m hardly going to rape you, am I?’

‘Or me you.’ Remus glared. That was the emotional apex of the discussion as Sirius recalls, because they then went on to decide whether tubes were better than jars, whether there wasn’t a spell that might actually short-circuit all the hassle, and what did the Grim really mean: was Remus going to die? Perhaps Padfoot was going to die.

Of course, Padfoot comes closest to being able to express the things Sirius can’t say, though Remus remembers little or nothing of their full moon nights. In the mornings after the Transformation, Sirius often thinks that his touches may manage to convey something of what he feels, though unfortunately Remus is usually too out of it for his breathless, helpless, doggy hugs to be more than a small comfort. 

**6\. In Writing**

Sirius’s past sessions with _Witch Weekly_ have yielded mixed results. Last night, he got rather absorbed in the article on presents, but he also read the final episode of his serial, which took the form of a series of owls between the protagonists, Bernadette and Timmy. Sirius enjoyed the story so much that he extracted each episode discreetly, and has the whole thing hidden at the bottom of his trunk: except for the latest part, because other Gryffindors are still reading the current issue of the magazine.

He’s now in the common room, wondering whether he should try writing Remus a letter, and thinking about the opening owl in the serial, which started: _‘Dear Bernadette, I didn’t get a chance to tell you how much I love you. You were carried off so suddenly by your godmother on her broomstick…’_

Sirius liked Bernadette’s reply, because she told Tim all about how she’d been kidnapped and locked in a haunted castle by her godmother and wicked stepmother, who were forcing her to marry a dark wizard at wand-point. She had, of course, managed to smuggle in an owl, so she could communicate with her erstwhile boyfriend. After dealing with the exigencies of the plot, she added as a virtual PS: ‘Tim, I am in danger. I love you too.’

Not that Remus is in danger. He did his homework late, because it’s library day, and right now he’s up in the dorm finishing a special essay for McGonagall, on the origins of fur and feathers as an aid to Transfiguration. In fact, he’s very confused by the whole topic, but won’t let Sirius help him. Sirius is sorry about that, because it would certainly be a gesture of affection at least. It’s the third time McGonagall’s made Remus rewrite it: for some reason, he persists in thinking that feathers have something to do with badminton. James has tried to explain that it’s only because they turned doves into shuttlecocks in one lesson, and the actual fur and feathers lesson was about Animagi, but Remus just wails, ‘Shut up, Prongs. That doesn’t help.’

Sirius takes out his sharpest quill and a fresh sheet of parchment. He’s never written a love letter before, and doesn’t know where to start, because at least he won’t wake up tomorrow and find Remus married to a wicked witch; in the story, Bernadette actually did marry the dark wizard, found he was really a spy for the good side, and fell madly in love with him. The final letter was from her to Tim, telling him, basically, to shove it.

He starts with _’Dear Remus, love, Sirius.’_

He likes that. It’s short and to the point, but subtle. He doesn’t think the purple ink is quite right; green perhaps, or sepia. Remus likes sepia.

He’s copying it out in sepia when it suddenly hits him that, in spite of the correct punctuation with the right amount of commas – double-checked – Remus may misread it and think that Sirius is either begging him to love him, as in _’Dear Remus, Love Sirius’_ , or has carelessly missed out a letter, as in _’Dear, Remus Love(s) Sirius’_. Bloody semantics!

He crumples up the letter, chucks it in the fire, and starts again. 

_’Dear Remus. I love you. I luv you! Lurve you.’_

Shit, he’s having exactly the same problem as he does when he’s trying to verbalise the sodding emotion.

How about something a bit more flowery?

_’Dear Remus,_

 _I’ve just been thinking about the other night. I hope you remember it too, because it was ~~transcendental~~ fun. We kissed and ~~made love~~ had sex, and ~~damn, why am I telling you all this when you were actually there?~~ Afterwards I thought it was time I told you how I feel about you. Which is…’_

That one goes straight into the fire, as does the next. _‘Remus, my love, you have really pretty brown hair with some nice highlights, and I like your eyes too.’_ He reflects for a minute on the colour of Remus’s eyes, and decides that ‘hazel’ covers it. 

The bell goes for final lights out, and Peter, who’s just bounced through the portrait-hole looking really pleased with himself, regales Sirius with a long anecdote about the Chess Tournament as they go up to the dorm. Sirius is glad that Remus doesn’t play chess, at least, because Sirius himself is hopeless at the game and probably wouldn’t be able to keep Remus company. 

**7\. Telepathically**

Remus and Sirius always work together in Divination, and are two of the most promising Seers Hogwarts has ever known. Actually, they’re the only two: Sybil Trelawney, who passed through Hogwarts a generation earlier, was forced to give up Divination because she used to fall into trances and find it impossible to concentrate.

Today, they are going to try a spot of mind-reading. ‘Now, the secular branch of this discipline is known as Leglimency,’ Professor Whipsnade says, ‘but we Seers like to call it telepathy, a Greek Muggle word meaning, literally, far feeling or sensing. But,’ he continues, giving out blindfolds, one per pair, ‘we are looking for images here, or words, or even sounds, if we’re advanced enough.’ He smiles at Remus and Sirius, the only class members who _are_ advanced enough.

One Hufflepuff bursts into tears as her blindfold is tied. ‘I’m afraid of the dark, Professor.’ 

‘You must wear it,’ Whipsnade says, quite severely. ‘Or you can infer from your partner’s face what she’s thinking.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ the partner mutters. She’s a Slytherin, with a permanent scowl.

Remus puts on the blindfold first, as Sirius projects his thoughts very strongly to him. It’s easy. ‘I love you,’ he repeats mentally, almost breathing the words. ‘I love you, Moony.’

‘I’m getting a giant strawberry,’ Remus announces, looking up at the ceiling even though he can’t see a thing. ‘And I can hear words…yes. Something about flowers. You want to give me flowers.’ He lowers his voice on the last bit.

‘Nowhere near. Well, not very,’ Sirius amends. You say it with flowers, don’t you? But not to someone as thick and unpsychic as Remus, obviously.

He’s blindfolded in his turn, hoping to hear Remus saying the words that he can’t quite manage. But he can imagine them, floating clearly across from Remus’s mind to his, accompanied by the sound of bells and violins. 

Instead, he gets a nebulous picture of something fuzzy and black. He supposes it could be Padfoot, but realises that Remus is still, months later, worried about the Grim. He sighs, exasperated, and removes the blindfold.

‘For goodness' sake,’ he grumbles, ‘you’re obsessive, you know that?’ Honestly, what’s the point?

Remus gives him a smile that clearly says, ‘I’m obsessed with you too, though.’ That’s what Sirius likes to think, anyway. He doesn’t care if he’s deluding himself, because he does love Remus, and he’s sure Remus loves him, and it isn’t important whether they tell each other or not.

A few moments later, though, he’s plunged into gloom again when Remus starts picturing Hippogriffs. What is it with his boyfriend and animals? Well, perhaps he doesn’t want to go into that one too closely. He gives up, and thinks about dolphins, which Remus guesses immediately.

Once the telepathy session is over, Sirius perks up when he reflects that he hasn’t in any way exhausted his options. For a start, he’s forgotten the most obvious method of all, sign language. All he has to do is learn how to communicate with deaf wizards, using his wand and a few simple spells, and he can tell Remus exactly how he feels, economically and without any trauma. 

Really, the possibilities are endless and no doubt he’ll stumble on the right one some day. Semaphore. Morse code, like Muggles use. Perhaps he could hire a Muggle sign-writer to go up in his plane and blazon the words across the sky. He could spell them out in Scrabble letters, or write Remus a special song. 

Sirius hums as he polishes his crystal ball, which will, he hopes, show him what’s for lunch. He suddenly realises he’s hardly eaten anything for the past two days and he’s ravenous.

**End**


End file.
